Court decision sidetracks future nuclear reactors for Ontario

Ian MacLeod, Ottawa Citizen05.14.2014

DARLINGTON, ONTARIO: NOVEMBER 17, 2011 -- The Darlington Nuclear Power Plant as seen at dusk for Ian MacLeod story on the future of nuclear waste, specifically how the world and Canada is doing to permanently and safely store the extremely deadly material.Wayne Cuddington
/ Ottawa Citizen

The Darlington Nuclear Power Plant as seen at dusk. The estimated cost to update four reactors at Darlington beginning in 2016 has not been released.Wayne Cuddington
/ Ottawa Citizen

The Federal Court has halted Ontario’s long-term intent to build nuclear reactors at Darlington over concerns about nuclear waste, accidents and hazardous emissions.

The decision orders that a federal joint review panel be reconvened to more fully consider those three issues under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

While the decision has no immediate impact — Ontario has already indefinitely postponed the new-build plan — it is a symbolic blow to an industry coping with the public and political fallout from Japan’s 2011 Fukushima meltdown, diminishing demand for electricity.

“Until such time as the panel has completed its work of reconsideration and determination….(the federal cabinet) has no jurisdiction to issue any authorizations or take any other action. which would enable the project to proceed, in whole or in part,” Justice James Russell declares in the 213-page decision.

He also ruled that a preliminary site-preparation licence issued to Ontario Power Generation (OPG) in 2012 by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission is now invalid. It had been the first preparatory permit for new reactors in Canada in 30 years.

Environmentalists applaud the moves.

“This is a win for Canadians’ right to meaningfully participate in environmental reviews and understand the risks of nuclear power,” Theresa McClenaghan, executive director of the Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA), said in a statement Thursday.

The association, Greenpeace Canada and two other groups launched a legal challenge of a previous joint panel decision in 2011 that found the project is “not likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects.”

The groups argued it was not possible to conduct a proper environmental assessment because the reactor technology has yet to be chosen from four different options. Other key component options for site design layout, cooling, used-fuel storage and radioactive waste management also remain unspecified.

Justice Russell agreed in part, saying he found three aspects of the panel’s environmental assessment report “problematic” and in need of “re-assessment”:

- Three of the four reactor type options use low enriched uranium fuel, yet no real consideration was given to long-term disposal of such spent fuel. A current federal effort to build a deep geological repository is limited to spent fuel from Canada’s existing fleet of CANDU reactors, which burn natural uranium. Spent low enriched fuel is more radioactive and may require much different handling and long-term storage techniques.

- OPG did not present a cumulative effects analysis for “common cause” severe accidents affecting multiple reactors in the event of a Fukushima-type disaster.

- There was a lack of analysis of hazardous substance emissions, in particular liquid effluent and stormwater run-off from the proposed reactors and for the sources, types and quantities of non-radioactive wastes to be generated by the project

OPG is reviewing the decision and, “taking the time to read it and understand the basis for this ruling before we can assess the implications or determine our course of action,” spokesman Neal Kelly said Thursday. The CNSC is reviewing the ruling and declined to comment.

The Ontario government announced its plan in 2009 to build up to four additional reactors at the Darlington nuclear station at Clarington, but later balked at the estimated $15-billion to $26-billion cost and uncertainties in Canada’s nuclear industry.

Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli has made repeated statements in recent months that the postponement is just a bump in Ontario’s long-term nuclear energy strategy.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, favour pushing ahead with new reactors, which they say will help stimulate the provincial economy.

In the meantime, the industry is focused on the multibillion-dollar mid-life refurbishments of 10 CANDU reactors at Darlington and at the Bruce Nuclear Generation Station at Kincardine along Lake Huron, operated by Bruce Power.

The work on six reactors at Bruce reportedly will start in 2016 and last 15 years, at a cost of $15 billion. The estimated cost to update four reactors at Darlington beginning in 2016 has not been released.

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